Match vs Eharmony

Eharmony and Match are undoubtedly two of the most popular and very best dating sites that can help you find an awesome girl friend or wife. If you are tired of wasting your time with free dating apps that are full of flaky girls and women and you want to turbo charge your results, you should consider signing up with one of these two.

While both of these online dating services have been around a very long time, and have large numbers of attractive females who want to meet guys like you, you may be wondering which one is the best.

What is Eharmony all about?

Eharmony was started by Dr. Neil Clark Warren in 2000. Dr. Warren is an interesting guy who was a pastor and seminarian and also a clinical psychologist who specialized in marriage counseling. Today Eharmony is a huge site, claiming to have over 10 million users, and 750 thousand paid members in over 200 countries

Dr. Warren invented Eharmony because he believed, based upon his clinical practice, that most marriages in the US either ended in divorce or were basically unhappy because the spouses had incompatible personalities.

He also believed that, although opposite qualities did often spark initial attraction between couples, in the long run, marriages between people who had similar personalities and values were more likely to be successful.

Eharmony requires people to fill out a long and detailed questionnaire in order to sign up. Not all applications are accepted. Around 20% are rejected for various reasons, including already being married, giving inconsistent answers to the questionnaire, or being under 60 and having already been married 4 times before.

The Eharmony matching algorithm

Once you are accepted as a member, the website’s matching algorithm creates matches for you with others based upon 27 dimensions of personality, as well as questions regarding your basic values.This avoids matching an agnostic with someone who is very religious, or two people with clashing personality styles.

The algorithm also uses machine learning and actually learns and improves based upon which of your matches were more or less successful and modifies its matches based upon your prior experiences, so that your dating experience keeps getting better.

The machine learning program also uses Google Cloud’s API to analyze the photos of previous matches who you have liked, based upon physical characteristics such as to hair color and eye color, even further increasing your chances of success.

Between the personality analysis created by a clinical psychologist and the cutting age machine learning, there is a good chance that the quality of your matches will be better than those from most other online dating services.

Once you have completed the profile, and uploaded your pictures, there is essentially nothing more you have to do to get matches, which makes using their service super easy and saves you lots of time. This makes Eharmony perfect for really busy professionals.

As the algorithm starts serving up matches. It also creates a scaled personality profile for members. You can see the profile of your matches, and they can see yours.

If interest is mutual, the site assists you with your initial communications with your match by “guided communications”, which helps you navigate the sometimes awkward early phase of online dating. After a few of those, you can do the rest on your own.

There is no ability to search profiles for other possible matches, or send messages to members who have not been matched with you by the algorithm. Although this might sound bad, it can actually be good because it saves you a lot of time, so that it can actually increase your chances of finding the right person.

Eharmony focusses on results

Dr. Warren believed that having too many choices was just as bad as having too few, and could lead to confusion or inaction. Eharmony believes that the quality of the matches is much more important than the quantity of matches, and claims that 70% of paid members get married within 12 months, and the divorce rate of Eharmony couples is only around 4%, way below the average US divorce rate of around 50%.

Because the site is designed to create marriages and because it is somewhat more expensive than most other dating sites, it is undoubtedly true that the vast majority of members are focused on finding serious relationships and marriages, so you won’t waste your time with people who are not on the same page.

Eharmony complaints

While Eharmony has a large number of satisfied customers, there have been complaints of a lack of matches, especially in less populated areas, as well as billing issues.

It does have an excellent “A” rating with the Better Business Bureau, which assures you that if you have an issue pertaining to billing, that it will most likely be resolved to your satisfaction.

Eharmony also has online ID verification for all paid members, which helps keep you safe from scammers and hackers.

What is Match.com all about?

Match.com (now calling itself just “Match”) is probably the biggest of all online dating services and claims over 20 million users with million in the US. Match was started in 1995 and is presently available in 24 countries in 15 different languages.

It is also an extremely well run company that has been very successful and has been taking over a lot of other online dating services, including Tinder and

Paid memberships are not cheap, and in fact for the 12 month programs are almost as expensive as Eharmony, though Match’s price advantage is greater for the 3 month and 6 month programs.

Because members have to pay to become premium members, Match definitely has a greater percentage of members who are somewhat older, more highly educated, and are more likely to be looking for serious relationships than members of most other online dating services.

All in all Match has broader demographics of members than Eharmony, and also accepts LGBT members.

Unlike Eharmony, some Match members who are looking for serious relationships are not necessarily looking to get married, at least not right away. There are also some members who are interested in short term “flings” or even one night stands.

Match is similar to Eharmony in that, once you have signed up, the site will start serving up daily matches automatically. However, it is different in that Match allows members to freely search the profiles using a variety of filters, and reach out to others via email or IM. There is no limit as to how many matches his you can have, or how many emails you can send, which allows you to potentially get a lot of dates.

The Match algorithm

Match has a fairly simple algorithm that it uses to create matches. It starts by analyzing your complete profile as well as the complete profiles of other users. Most members will create profiles where all the questions are answered, which include questions about height and body type, marital status (single, divorced, separated, widowed, etc), number of children and whether or not they live at home, and the like. They also usually complete questions about what kind of person they are looking for.

This allows the matching program to set up initial potential matches. But Match realized fairly early that quite often people said they liked one type of person, but actually picked different types of people, so Match incorporated machine learning that modified the algorithm to reflect your actual choices as shown in who you actually communicated with.

Match search methods

There are numerous search methods available, such as basic match, reverse match, and mutual match, and matching by keywords.

Although the different search methods and options may seem initially confusing, you can be quite successful using only basic Match. If you want to use the other options, they are easy to figure out. The various powerful search methods, along with a huge pool of eligible singles makes it easy for you to find lots of potential compatible matches.

Match events

Match also has regular “Stir” events where you can meet other members in real life, which is helpful if you haven’t been in the dating arena for a long time, and need to get rid of the “ring rust”..

Online safety and security

Although Match does not require verification for members to sign up, there is optional verification for paid members, which allows them to put a “verified’ badge on their profiles. The mobile version of Match also has a feature which provides paid members with an anonymous telephone number, all of which provides greater security and safety.

If you live in or near a decent sized city and you are not ridiculously picky, it is unlikely that you will run out of matches, but there is an option to purchase one hour “boosts” for your profile, which you can use during peak times, to get even more matches.

Match complaints

Match.com has many satisfied customers, but like all online dating sites, it also has its share of complaints.

Female members, especially ones who post attractive profile pictures, tend to be inundated with tons of emails. Many are so put off by the volume that they quit the site.

Because female members get so many emails, male members often end up sending large numbers of email which are unanswered and can become discouraged. This usually happens because they live in rural areas, because their profiles are not done well, or because they don’t understand that online dating is a numbers game which requires them to put a lot of time and effort to succeed.

Conclusion

These are both excellent dating services. I am always hesitant to say that any dating service is“the best” because what is “best” for one person

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About The Author

Paul Winston, JD, MBA, the founder of Online Dating Adventures is an attorney who became a dating coach after intense study of the principles of attraction, dating, and relationships for 3 years. He currently resides in New York City.

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